“He looks very comfortable,” Richard said, voice mild enough, but his power was hot, like opening the door to an oven.
I licked my lips. I was going to have to explain the ardeur, sooner or later, and since I wanted him to help us save Gregory, tonight was probably the right time. “Nathaniel and I were discussing some side effects of marrying the vampire marks.”
“You mean the ardeur,” he said.
I was surprised and let it show. “Who told you?”
“Jean-Claude thought I should know. He encouraged me to come over and be here for you in the morning.”
“And you said?” I kept my voice as neutral as I could, but not as neutral as I wanted it to be.
“I don’t let him, or Asher, or any of them, feed off of me, blood or anything else. I don’t see why I should change that rule just because it’s you and it’s sex instead of blood.”
“Did he explain that if I don’t feed off of you, or him, I still have to feed off of someone?”
“There’s always your Nimir-Raj.” The contempt in his voice was thick enough to walk on.
“Micah’s been called away on pard business.”
“You really think he won’t be back before morning so you can fuck him? I do.”
I stared up at him, still sitting in the face of his burning power and the sheer physical presence of him. Richard was one of those big men who never seemed big unless he was angry. He seemed big now, and I wasn’t impressed.
I started petting Nathaniel’s hair, and he snuggled in against my legs, letting the tension ease out of his body. “You dumped me, remember?”
“And did you fuck him for the first time before or after you found out I’d dumped you?”
I had to think about that for a second or two. “After,” I said.
“You mourned my loss for, what, half a second?”
I felt heat crawl up my face. I was out of moral high ground, and explaining that it was the ardeur just wasn’t good enough for Richard.
“It took all three of us to get into this mess, don’t make it worse.”
“Don’t you mean four of us, or is it five now?”
I must have looked as blank as I felt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He grabbed the table and shoved it backwards with a scream of wood on wood. Nathaniel stayed curled around my legs and just looked up at him. I’d never gotten my gun back from the wererats. I had gotten my knives back, but I wasn’t really willing to cut Richard up, not yet, not for this. I couldn’t arm wrestle Richard, not and win, so really my only option was to sit, look perfectly calm, and tell him by my facial expression what a fucking asshole he was being.
He shoved the table again, making the wood scream, then he knelt beside Nathaniel and pushed his long hair back. He bared his back and stared at the bite marks.
“Is that all?” he asked, voice fierce, his power so high it was like treading in boiling water, up to my chin, and still rising.
“No,” I said.
Richard gripped the back of Nathaniel’s shorts and pulled, the movement so violent that Nathaniel’s entire body moved with it. I heard the button from the top of the shorts bounce along the floor. Richard jerked down the shorts and stared at the bite marks, where they trailed ever lower.
Richard leaned over Nathaniel, not quite touching, but he was like some huge presence, and I felt Nathaniel cower against me.
Richard hissed into his ear, “Did she suck you off? She’s good at that.”
“That’s enough, Richard.”
Nathaniel answered, “No.”
“You’re so scared of me I can’t tell if you’re lying or not.” He grabbed a handful of Nathaniel’s hair and pulled him backwards, peeling him away from me. I had one of the wrist sheath knives in my hand and didn’t remember drawing it. The point was pressed against the long line of Richard’s throat, and even I was breathless at the speed of it. It must have been a blur of movement. It wasn’t human speed.
Everything froze.
Shang-Da and Jamil moved into the room. I pressed the point deeper against Richard’s neck. “Don’t interfere, boys.”
They stopped moving. I met Richard’s gaze and found his eyes had gone wolf amber. “Let go of him, Richard.” My voice was low, but it seemed to fill the room.
“You wouldn’t kill me for this.” His voice was low, careful, too.
“Kill, no, but bleed? Oh, yes.”
“You need me to help you save Gregory.”
I could feel his pulse beating against the tip of my knife. “I won’t let you hurt Nathaniel to save Gregory.”
His grip actually tightened on Nathaniel’s hair, and I pressed the point in enough to draw the first crimson drop. “Would you be this upset if it wasn’t Nathaniel?” he said.
“This is the only warning I will ever give you, Richard. Never touch one of my people again.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me? I don’t think you’ll do it.”
I realized in that moment that if I wasn’t willing to kill him, I had no threat. And I really wasn’t willing to kill him, not over this, not yet.
I drew the blade back from his neck and watched him relax, the tension easing away from him, his hand still in Nathaniel’s hair. I moved without thinking, and I was fast enough that the knife cut across his forearm before he could react. He jerked away, came to his feet, and took a step back, holding his bleeding arm. The cut was deeper than I’d meant for it to be, because I’d rushed it. Blood dripped from between his fingers. Jamil and Shang-Da moved into the room.
I stood and drew Nathaniel with me, as he pulled up his shorts to cover himself. I put the French doors at our backs. “You are never to lay a hand in anger on my leopards, Richard, you or any of your wolves.”
Jamil was helping Richard press a towel to the wound. Shang-Da had gone for Dr. Lillian. “It would serve you right if I just walked out and left you and your leopards to fend for yourselves.”
“You’d leave Gregory to be permanently deaf, or dead, because we had a fight? He’s in danger because you couldn’t control your temper, or your wolves.”
“It’s my fault, right, all my fault.”
I just looked at him, Nathaniel behind me, the bloody knife still in my hand.
Richard gave a laugh that sounded more out of pain than humor. “I’ve let everyone down tonight.” He looked at me, and there was something fierce in his face that wasn’t his beast but just sheer emotion. Anger, pain, so deep it was like anquish. “I’ll help you save Gregory, because you’re right, it is my fault. I’ll take this,” he raised the wounded arm, while Jamil still held it, “because you’re right again, I had no right to touch one of your people. I wouldn’t have let you abuse one of my wolves either.”
Dr. Lillian came in, took one look and started scolding us for being children who couldn’t play well together. “He’s going to need stitches. Shame on you both.”
Richard stared over her head as she cleaned the wound. I think he wasn’t really glaring at me, he was glaring at Nathaniel. He was genuinely jealous. Jealous in a way that he shouldn’t have been. What had Jean-Claude told him about the ardeur and about Nathaniel, and about what we’d all done together at the Circus? Jean-Claude wouldn’t actually lie, but he might make things sound worse if it suited his purposes. But what purpose did it serve to make Richard jealous of Nathaniel? I would have to ask Jean-Claude about that. I had time to call while Richard got stitched up.
34
JEAN-CLAUDE ADMITTED ONLY to telling the absolute truth. But, he added, if because of that Monsieur Zeeman was jealous of Nathaniel, this wasn’t an altogether bad thing. “He will share you with me, because he must, and he will share you with Micah also, because he must, but we are both alphas, dominants. To share you with someone like Nathaniel—that is different.”
“You changed something about the story to make Nathaniel sound like more of a threat, didn’t you?”
“No, ma petite, I merely told the truth without le
aving anything out. He is not entirely happy with Jason either.”
“Jean-Claude, you can’t do this to Richard. You’ll drive him mad.”
“Mad enough, perhaps, to finally acknowledge that he cannot live without you, and that he must come to terms with our triumvirate.”
“You Machiavellian shithead, you’re playing with him.”
“I am trying to maneuver him into doing what must be done if we are to survive. If that be Machiavellian, so be it.”
“You are making things worse,” I said.
“I don’t believe so. I think, ma petite, that you still do not understand men. Many men will give up a woman if they are unhappy with her. But let another man try to claim her, and often, they find they still do want her.”
“You and Micah aren’t competition enough?” I asked.
“As I explained, we are his equals. Nathaniel is lesser, and that will prick his pride more.”
“I didn’t think Richard had that kind of destructive guy pride.”
“I think there are many things you do not know about our Richard.”
“And you do?”
“I am, after all, a man, ma petite. I believe I understand the male psyche a tiny bit better than you do.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “Well, give me a heads-up next time you plan to do any maneuvering. You could have gotten one of us killed.”
He sighed. “I do keep underestimating the stubbornness of both of you. My apologies for that.”
I leaned my forehead against the kitchen wall. “Jean-Claude . . .”
“Yes, ma petite.”
I closed my eyes. “Tell me exactly what you think Richard thinks about Nathaniel and me.”
“I told him the absolute truth, ma petite, nothing more, and nothing less.”
I turned around, put my back to the wall, looked out at the empty kitchen. Richard was in the downstairs bathroom getting stitched up. Nathaniel was with the other leopards. I’d given strict orders that he was not to be left alone. I just wasn’t up to Richard and him actually having a fight. It would be too . . . ridiculous, or pathetic.
“And what does that mean, that you told the truth, no more, no less?”
“You will not like it.”
“I don’t like it now, just tell me, Jean-Claude.”
“I told him what had happened with the ardeur, and added my own belief that the reason you so often find Nathaniel around when sex is in the air is that you find him sexually attractive.”
“That did not make Richard come over here and start a fight.”
“I do remember adding that you might find a less-demanding male refreshing after the two of us. Someone who did not make so many demands on you, someone who merely accepted you as you are.”
“You do that,” I said.
“So good of you to notice,” he said. “But it is not I that has been living in your home for months, and from what I smell on Nathaniel when he comes into work, sharing your bed.”
“Any of the wereleopards are welcome in the bedroom when they stay here. It’s like a big pile of puppies—it’s not sexual.”
“If you say so.” His voice was soft, mocking.
“Damn you, Jean-Claude, you know I don’t see Nathaniel that way.”
He sighed, and it was heavy. “I think it is not me that you lie to, ma petite, but yourself.”
“I am not in love with Nathaniel.”
“Did I ever say you were?”
“Then what are you talking about?”
He made a small exasperated sound. “Ma petite, you still believe that you must love every man that you come to physically. It is not so. You can have very pleasant, even wondrous sex with a friend. It does not have to be love.”
I was shaking my head, realized he couldn’t see it, and said, “I don’t do casual sex, Jean-Claude, you know that.”
“Whatever you are doing with Nathaniel, ma petite, it is not casual.”
“I can’t use him as my pomme de sang. I can’t.”
“Your morals have reared their ugly heads, ma petite, do not let them make you foolish.”
I opened my mouth to protest everything he’d said, but closed it and just thought about what he’d said for a few seconds. Did I find Nathaniel attractive? Well, yeah. But I found a lot of men attractive. That didn’t mean I had to be intimate with them.
“Ma petite, I can hear you breathing. What are you thinking?”
What he said made me think a new thought. “When we first married the marks I could almost read your mind, unless you concentrated to keep me out. Now it’s not like that. Maybe the ardeur will be temporary, too.”
“Perhaps, we can but hope.”
“If I have the ardeur, I’ll have to have sex. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“I would be a fool to deny that your enforced chastity is burdensome, but I would never willingly inflict the ardeur on anyone. It is a . . . curse, ma petite. The blood lust that I feel can be sated. My body can only hold so much. But the ardeur, oh, ma petite, it is never truly satisfied. There is always that ache, that need. How could I wish that upon you? Though if our Monsieur Zeeman would cooperate, it might be the answer for the two of you to finally reach some permanent arrangement.”
“What, move in together?”
“Perhaps.” His voice was very careful when he said that one word.
“Richard and I can’t be in a room for an hour without arguing, unless we are having sex. Somehow I don’t think that makes for domestic bliss.”
I felt the first emotion he’d let me feel over the phone—relief. He was relieved. “I want what is best for all of us, ma petite, but as things grow more complex, I am no longer certain what ‘best’ would be.”
“Don’t tell me your machinations didn’t include some backup plan to cover every eventuality. You are the ultimate plotter, don’t tell me you missed a trick.”
“I watched Belle Morte fill your eyes with her fire. You are acquiring powers as if you were a Master Vampire, or a Master Lycanthrope. How could I have planned for any of this?”
There was a cold knot of fear in the center of my gut. “So you finally admit that you don’t know what the hell is going on either.”
“Oui, does that please you?” I heard the first stirrings of anger in his voice. “Are you happy now, ma petite? I am well and truly out of my depth. No one has ever tried to forge an alliance such as we have, an alliance not of master and two slaves, but of three equals. I do not think you appreciate how gentle I am when it comes to hoarding my power. The wolves are my animal to call. Many masters would have forced them to simply be an adjunct to their own vampires.”
“Nikolaos’s animal to call was rats, not wolves,” I said. “By the time you took over as Master of the City, Marcus and Raina’s pack was too strong for you to make them an adjunct to your power. Hell, until you replenished the vamps that I killed, they were probably more powerful than you and your vampires.”
“Are you implying that the only reason I am not a tyrant is because I didn’t have the strength of arms to make it so?”
I thought about that for a second, then said, “I’m not implying it, I’m saying it.”
“You think so little of me?”
“I know what you were like two, almost three years ago, and I think then you would have consolidated your power base with very little regard for anyone that got in your way.”
“Are you saying I am ruthless?”
“Practical,” I said.
It was his turn to be quiet for a second or two, then, “Practical, yes, I am that, as are you, ma petite.”
“I know what I am, Jean-Claude, it’s you I’m not sure of.”
“I would never willingly hurt you, ma petite.”
“I believe you,” I said.
“I am not sure the same can be said of you,” he said, quietly.
“I don’t want to hurt either of you. But Richard cannot harm my leopards, and if you do anything stupid, don’t blame me for what h
appens next.”
“I would never underestimate your level of . . . practicality, ma petite, though I think Richard might.”
“He told me I wouldn’t kill him just for roughing up Nathaniel.”
“How rough was Richard to little Nathaniel?”
“Don’t talk about him like he’s a child, Jean-Claude, and rough enough that I cut Richard’s arm open.”
“How badly?”
“The doc’s stitching him up, even as we speak.”
“Oh, dear,” he said, and sighed, and this time the sound eased down my skin. I realized that he’d been behaving himself until now, at least about using his voice.
“No more games, Jean-Claude. I want to put Richard on the phone, and you tell him you did this on purpose.”
“But I cannot tell him that I lied about Nathaniel, now can I?”
“You fix this, Jean-Claude, now, tonight. I need Richard to teach me how to call Gregory’s beast. I don’t have time for him to sulk.”
“What am I to tell him, ma petite? What surety can I give him that you will not be in Nathaniel’s arms tomorrow morning? I believe that I can maneuver Richard into staying the night, having him there at your side when the ardeur rises.”
“Richard’s already made his position clear, Jean-Claude. He doesn’t let you, or Asher, or anyone, feed off of him. He doesn’t see why the rules change just because it’s me and sex, instead of blood.”
“He said that?” Jean-Claude gave a questioning lilt to his voice.
“Yeah, he said that, almost word-for-word.”
Jean-Claude sighed, and it sounded tired. “What am I to do with the two of you?”
“Don’t ask me,” I said, “I just work here.”
“And what, exactly, does that mean, ma petite?”
“It means that we don’t have a boss. It’s great being equals, if that’s what we are, but none of us knows what the hell is going on, and that isn’t good, Jean-Claude. We are messing with some very serious stuff here, metaphysically and emotionally and just plain physically. We need some clue as to what we should be doing with all of it.”
“And who should we be asking advice of, ma petite? If any vampire on the Council were to suspect that I have not given you both the fourth mark, they would destroy us, for fear that with the fourth mark we would become an even greater power.”
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Collection 6-10 Page 237
